NYC’s underground, as inspiring as Everest

Lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn, subways

Erling Kagge, a Norwegian climber, has started exploring the sewers and subway tunnels of New York City.
“The opportunity to see New York in a way no one else has, from the inside out, is, for me, as inspiring as walking to the poles and climbing Everest,” he told Alan Feuer, a New York Times reporter who went with him underground in early December.
People with the money to explore anywhere dismiss this kind of exploration as crazy. But I think not. A mistaken enterprise to me is to fly around the world and follow a path thousands of others are following, damaging pristine areas for personal gain, to stand on a summit that has killed hundreds.
Kagge and urban explorer Steve Duncan, who accompanied him, prove the point by going to extremes in the grimy urban sewers and subway tunnels. To explore them brings on the same peace of mind… feeds the same gremlin that exploring the Himalaya does. The gremlin is not necessarily bad, but it can work on people like an unrest, the itch to get out and challenge oneself.
See Feuer’s article, which appeared in Sunday’s New York Times, at this link.
For another New York Times article on the updating of the old sewer maps, go here.
Duncan mentions the disjointed New York underground odyssey on his blog about urban adventure at undercity.org.